Tuesday, April 9, 2013

A hermit crab makes a plastic home. We dive against debris.

Just a few days ago, a hermit crab with quite an extraordinary shell caught the attention of our General Manager Iain. A hermit crab which made it's home in a plastic cap and not a natural sea shell.

Although
creative on the Hermit Crab side, it is also sad to see; the environment that humans have
created in today's world has caused animals to revert to such desperate measures rather
than having natural accommodation.

We witness, and clean the plastic waste that washes up on our beach daily. Plastic pollution is relatively invisible in the ocean (because it is diluted). However it does eventually become obvious when washes ashore spoiling beautiful beaches, and affecting animals in rather shocking ways.

What we do ?

As a resort we minimise our plastic waste outputs; e.g. we have a glass water bottling plant on-site (no PET water bottles), and we avoid importing soft drinks in plastic (we choose cans & glass). Guests also are encouraged to take their own plastic waste out of Maldives, back to their home, where recycling facilities are available.

We also ask everyone on the island to not collect empty sea shells; which normally act as home to such hermit crabs.

Dive Against Debris - spreading marine debris awareness

Participating in global ProjectAWARE diver movement, we went for a Dive Against Debris with 5 divers this month, and our General Manager Iain, joined us as well ! We went out to check back on the debris situation of our house reef, and luckily we only found about 4 Kg of debris. Dominant items were plastic & glass bottles, as well as aluminum soft drink cans.Although such dives do not change the whole world in one day, they effectively spread awareness and understanding of marine debris problem. Support ProjectAWARE on their cause - Dive Against Debris !